The battle between the lower and upper houses could end in February, with a possible victory for those in favour of assisted dying.
Senate of France. / Photo: [link]J. Mabey[/link]
The French Senate recently rejected the government-backed Assisted dying Bill, by 181 votes to 122.
The National Assembly had passed the bill in May 2025, but the the Senate later changed its wording, which now states that everyone has the right to the “best possible relief from pain”, but "without any voluntary intervention intended to cause death”.
The Senate also voted for an alternative Bill on palliative care, in favour with 307 to 17.
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The Assisted dying draft law will go back to the National Assembly for a second reading on 16 February.
The government could allow the lower chamber to definitively pass the legislation without the Senate approval, because "the constitutional principle is that the Assemblée has the final say”, explained Laurent Panifous, the Minister for Relations with the Parliament, after the vote.
Thierry Le Gall, a Christian political expert, already explained to Evangelical Focus that it was “likely that the Senate will attempt to reform this law by incorporating the ethical and legal safeguards that were omitted in the first reading”.
“The debates I have attended in part from the galleries of the National Assembly reveal sometimes radically opposed worldviews. If the two houses of Parliament fail to reach an agreement at the end of the legislative process, the President of the Republic could call a national referendum”, he added.
Since the beginning of the process, the National Evangelical Council of France expressed its opposition to a law they believe would cause an “uncontrollable domino effect” on the most vulnerable.
Christian organisations in France have also mostly expressed their opposition to legalising assisted death. They cite the vulnerability of elderly and destitute people and the lack of quality medical care among the reasons for their opposition.
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